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Excerpt from last week's FoodTech Weekly conversation Corjan van den Berg of revyve (https://lnkd.in/devmbAeQ): Corjan did his Ph.D. in fermentation, and ‘went down the micro algae rabbit hole but realized green biomass wasn’t going to be a winner because you always end up with a big green fraction as a side product’. Revyve co-founders Corjan van den Berg and Edgar Suarez Garcia worked together as inspiring professor and student protégé at Wageningen University & Research (WUR). While researching how to make the most out of food-production side streams, they discovered the superpowers of upcycled beer yeast to mimic the power of eggs. So, Corjan left his tenure track position at WUR and together with Edgar he started FUMI Ingredients in 2019 (later rebranded to revyve):  ‘Scientific papers collect dust. I wanted to make a meaningful impact, so starting a company was natural’, Corjan says. So what does revyve actually do? The company collects upcycled yeast to produce high-performing texturizing ingredients. They break the cells, and process the biomass in a mild way (so no high temperatures or pH) into proteins and fibers, ending up with ingredients that have unique functional properties for e.g. foaming, gelation, emulsification etc. ‘Our ingredients are all natural and sustainable, helping to create the delicious food experiences consumers crave without the need for animal ingredients or additives’, Corjan explains. (When revyve added a button on their website for an egg white replacer, hundreds of companies asked for samples. ‘And I was producing 2 gram samples’, Corjan laughs.) In a couple of months, revyve will open a new state-of-the-art factory that’s capable of replacing 20M eggs per year. The Netherlands produces a few billion eggs per year, and 1/3 of them go to the food industry. Says Corjan: ‘In 5-10 years from now we’ll produce a range of functional ingredients, from different raw materials, that can be used for many applications, and consumers will not notice nor care, because the end products will be the same.’ Revyve sells its ingredient to companies doing baked goods, pasta, sauces, meat replacers (e.g. making plant based chicken meat more tender and flexible), and so on — any food product where eggs or egg whites are used today. Egg white replacement is a €7B market. The company has 17 FTEs, and raised a €8M Series A investment from Cosun and Oost-NL last year. Next year revyve will do a new funding round. If there are companies out there using egg whites in unexpected products (beyond the obvious ones — baked goods, sauces, meat replacement) Corjan is very interested to learn more about that. And if companies have any microbial biomass that they’re struggling to valorize, they should also reach out. Corjan can be reached here on LinkedIn!

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